Saw that in your Lost London thread el Greco, it's stunning :0 The whole streetscape looked better back then... I think a lot of the problem today comes from ugly black asphalt (a lighter colour would work wonders) and street clutter/ugly road paint. Cars looked IMO better back then, not to mention the buses...

...and people, people looked better. We're all so seduced by consumerism that we all wear garish badly clashing outfits to try and stand out, and all have wildly different hair lengths and colours in a vain attempt to assert our individualism. Don't underestimate how the way the people looked affected the street scene!

...and people, people looked better. We're all so seduced by consumerism that we all wear garish badly clashing outfits to try and stand out, and all have wildly different hair lengths and colours in a vain attempt to assert our individualism. Don't underestimate how the way the people looked affected the street scene!

THEY are an instantly recognisable symbol of London, but, perhaps appropriately for such a global city, the advertising lights at Piccadilly Circus, first switched on in 1908, have mostly been a catwalk for foreign brands, rather than domestic ones. Now Sanyo, which has flashed its name at the site since 1978, is to make way for Hyundai, a South Korean carmaker, which will pay Land Securities, the firm that owns the electronic hoardings, around £2m ($3.3m) a year for a central spot.

For the past century, the glittery displays have reflected shifts in international influence in business and beyond. British and European brands predominated until after the second world war: Perrier, a French drinks firm, was the first to spell its name in lights; Guinness, Bovril and Schweppes, three other beverage-makers, were also early presences. Yet the London landmark has not hosted a British company for nearly 40 years.

By the 1960s Americans were well established: Coca-Cola has been adding life to the lights since 1955; other American torchbearers have included Budweiser and McDonald’s. As Asian companies began to conquer global markets in the 1970s, so Japanese businesses started to colonise the Piccadilly boards. Canon led, followed by Fuji and TDK. The South Koreans came next. The illuminations in New York’s Times Square, which feature multiple American brands and also advertise shows, are comparatively parochial.

As the geographical spread has tellingly shifted, so has the mix of products on display. Disposable incomes rose, consumers became more ambitious and the cheap and easy pleasures of Player’s cigarettes and Skol and Double Diamond beer gave way to the new opiates of the masses: Kodak cameras, Philips hi-fis and Panasonic colour televisions, as well as the aspirational pull of the Volkswagen Beetle and foreign air travel.

The lights have sometimes reflected momentous events, as well as commercial trends. Though overrun with American GIs, Piccadilly Circus was dark throughout the second world war, lighting up again only in 1949. The signs have since been dimmed for the funerals of Winston Churchill in 1965 and Princess Diana in 1997. With the rise of LED displays and decline of neon the lights are now brighter than ever. But they may yet need to find some greener hues in their multicoloured glory: they generate 1.9m kg of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the emissions of around 2,000 of Hyundai’s bestselling cars. That is a lot of gas for a set of streetlights.

__________________London is not a city. It is more like a country, and living in it is like living in Holland or Belgium. Its completeness makes it deceptive - there are sidewalks from one frontier to the other - and its hugeness makes it possible for everyone to invent his own city. My London is not your London, though everyone's Washington, DC is pretty much the same.The London Embassy - Paul Theroux

You despicable instigator!!! How dare you deny the beauty and harmony of the 60's London!? What London is today is nothing compared to the beauty of the world's leading metropolis it was in the 1960s.

I don't buy that for a moment, if I ask my parents or grandparents who were living in the city in the 60s they would say that London has never looked better, there is no longer rubbish in the streets, there are no longer any slums, there is no longer severe air pollution or fumes on the tubes and the buildings of Central London are no longer blackened as they are in pictures from the seventies going backwards.

I don't buy that for a moment, if I ask my parents or grandparents who were living in the city in the 60s they would say that London has never looked better, there is no longer rubbish in the streets, there are no longer any slums, there is no longer severe air pollution or fumes on the tubes and the buildings of Central London are no longer blackened as they are in pictures from the seventies going backwards.

Never mind looking up in Piccadilly, you need to look down! The road surface on Haymarket is chronic. I ride my bike down there every day and it must have been dug up and repaved a hundred times. It's like a patchwork quilt of 50 different types of surface. Even pedestrians trip over on it. It's an eyesore. Westminster council need to sort it out.

Visitors to Piccadilly Circus will notice that most of the famous lights are currently hidden behind temporary hoardings.

The Coca Cola and Samsung signs are having new LED units fitted and the old Sanyo sign is being replaced by a new one from Hyundai. It is rare for the signs to change ownership and Hyundai are thought to have paid millions for this the first change since 1994.

The work is scheduled to finish before Christmas when the Circus will resume its role as one of London’s most visible attractions. According to the Daily Telegraph:

• 2,580,240 people in taxis pass the site each year
• 17,123,600 people see the lights from coaches or buses per year
• 34,274,552 pedestrians walk past the lights every year
• 2,436, 564 people drive past the lights in cars per year

__________________London is not a city. It is more like a country, and living in it is like living in Holland or Belgium. Its completeness makes it deceptive - there are sidewalks from one frontier to the other - and its hugeness makes it possible for everyone to invent his own city. My London is not your London, though everyone's Washington, DC is pretty much the same.The London Embassy - Paul Theroux

Piccadilly circus is so small IMHO this place is one of the most visited tourist attractions and a lot of works need to be done, though i also think that Boris should expend the entire Regent St and Oxford St by fitting more LCD Screens and electronic billboards like at the Times Square. It will give London a truly exciting and cosmopolitan atmosphere like in Tokyo or somewhere like that.

Piccadilly circus is so small IMHO this place is one of the most visited tourist attractions and a lot of works need to be done, though i also think that Boris should expend the entire Regent St and Oxford St by fitting more LCD Screens and electronic billboards like at the Times Square. It will give London a truly exciting and cosmopolitan atmosphere like in Tokyo or somewhere like that.

You idiot. That exactly what people don't want to see in London. People come here for its vibrant atmosphere amongst a historic background. Worst shout ever.

as much as an advocate of outdoor digital displays for art work and for visual excitement I am, are you really being serious about Regent Street?

Even Leicester Square is deemed a 'conservation area' with displays only allowed for Cinema listings...

although I do like to point out the hypocrisy of Westminster as much as possible: anyone noted the reasoning for not allowing planning permission for the artcultural digital display on the corner of the old home night club which sits directly opposite to the loud commercial M&Ms facade? Sigh.

Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road junction is also fair game in my view.